Python and Open Weather Map API

Before we start, you will need to sign up for an API key from the OpenWeatherMap website. Once you have your API key, you can use it to make the requests to the API. 

Step 1: Install the 'requests' Library

To connect to the OpenWeatherMap API in Python, we will use the requests library. This library allows us to easily make HTTP requests and handle the responses. First, we need to install the requests library using pip (package manager for Python)

Example

pip install requests

Step 2: Retrieve Weather Data from OpenWeatherMap API

Once you have the requests library installed, you can use it to make a request to the OpenWeatherMap API and retrieve weather data. The API uses HTTP GET requests with parameters to specify the location and other options for the weather data. 

The example Python code snippet below is used to demonstrates how to store the OpenWeather API key as a separate file (see below) and use it in your code

import json
import requests
# Load API key from file with  open('apikey.json') as f:

apikey = json.load(f)['api_key']
# Make API call

url = ("https://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/weather")
city = ("New York")
params = {"q": city, "appid": apikey, "units": "imperial"}
response = requests.get(url, params=params)
# Process response
if response.status_code == 200:
    weather_data = response.json()
    print(f'Temperature in {city}: {weather_data["main"]["temp"]}')
else:
    print('Error:', response.status_code)

we load the API key from a JSON file called apikey.json. The file should contain a JSON object with a single key api_key and the corresponding API key as the value.

Here is how to create the separate external file that contains your API Key. (more secure), it has just one single entry in the file that contains your key.

{
    "api_key": "682279a38a0d67660e26562480875681"
}

Conclusion

We then use the requests library to make the API call and process the response as needed. Note that you should always keep your API key secret and not include it in your code or upload it to a public repository. Storing it in a separate file that is not included in version control is one way to keep it secure..